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The November 2013 donation to the university’s business school has drawn criticism from some Catholic academics and faith-affiliated progressive groups who contend that Mr. Koch’s financial support for conservative and libertarian causes goes against church teaching on economics and social justice.

Looking at the broad traits that the public feel an ideal charity should have, transparency tops the ranking, with 45% selecting at least one attribute related to it. Answers such as honesty and trustworthiness highlight how essential transparency and fairness are in people's ideal charity. Interestingly, this category has seen a steep rise of 12% since 2012. This could potentially be due to negative stories about charity wrongdoing in the media over the last year.

For years I've taught fundraising. I've presented scores of fundraising seminars and workshops and taught a class on the subject at Harvard. My students have included both beginners and people who have been in the field for several years. I've been asked many of the same questions over my career. The ones I answer below are also explored more thoroughly in my book, How to Connect with Donors and Double the Money You Raise.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Historical microdata files based on Forms 990
and Forms 990-EZ sampled for the annual studies of nonprofit charitable and
other tax-exempt organizations are now available. Annual data are available for
organizations exempt from income tax under Internal Revenue Code Section
501(c)(3). Additional data for tax-exempt organizations under IRC Sections
501(c)(4) through 501(c)(9) are available for limited tax years.

Lessons From Inside The $800 Million Girl Scout Cookie Selling Empire | Fast Company | Business Innovation: According to a recent national study by the Girl Scouts Research Institute (GSRI), only 39% of girls want to be leaders. “Girls are not opting in to leadership roles. They’re putting their hands down earlier and earlier, as early as the age of five,” Parisi says. Another GSRI study on financial literacy found that 90% of girls think managing money is an important skill, but only 12% felt confident making financial decisions. “[The cookie program] allows girls to learn these skills in a safe space,” Parisi says.

Here are five lessons in entrepreneurship girls learn from the cookie program:

A rebounding economy and long-term investment in major gift donors paid off for colleges and universities in 2013, says John Lippincott, president of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, or CASE.

Schools that have shown fundraising success also are doing a good job in their stewardship of donors, including younger donors, by engaging them in their institutions in ongoing ways, he says.

massnonprofit.org ::: Massachusetts nonprofits have until March 1 to rally supporters to their cause in a new promotional effort spearheaded by The Boston Globe that will provide qualifying organizations with up to 10 pages of free advertising space in the publication.

The Boston Globe Readers And Nonprofit Together program—or GRANT—is intended to showcase nonprofits in the community and provide advertising space to organizations that might not otherwise be able to afford it, according to Natalie Bean, circulation manager at the Globe.

“I think there is an increased assumption among the parents that they must raise money, and they must raise more every year,” she tells me in a phone interview. “Fundraising used to be seen as something needed for extras - team shirts, or a special event. Now the question we ask is, ‘What is an extra?’”

Center for the Future of Museums: Monday Musings: What Price Nonprofit?: All of which raises a disturbing prospect of how long theaters can flirt with having their tax-exempt cake and eating it, too. I find this story disturbingly reminiscent of the way in which nonprofit hospitals (among the largest recipients of charitable donations) are increasingly coming into question for behaving in ways indistinguishable from for-profit hospitals. This has led to practical consequences such as the City of Pittsburgh challenging the tax-exempt status of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which in turn prompted legislation currently waiting voter approval that would give Pennsylvania the power to determine tax status, shielding nonpos from cash-strapped municipalities scrambling to find funds.

World Records Broken at Walkathon for Philippine Typhoon Survivors - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly: Among the Filipinos worldwide responding to the continuing crisis in their homeland are followers of the Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ), an independent and indigenous Christian group. Members participated in a walkathon staged in the Philippines and 55 other sites in Asia, Australia, Europe, and the United States, and in the process broke a couple of Guinness World Records.

Guinness adjudicator Kirsty Bennett certified that 175,509 congregants marched in Manila on Saturday, breaking the record set 14 years ago in Singapore when 77,500 people walked to promote healthy living. Bennett also confirmed that 519,221 Iglesia ni Cristo members worldwide set a new record for the largest

Controversial “Neutral” Donations Policy from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly: n an effort to give its clients a say in how some of its charitable dollars are invested, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans has created a program called Thrivent Choice. Eligible members are given Choice Dollars, ranging from $25 to $5,000 of Thrivent’s charitable outreach funds, and can identify which charitable causes will receive the money. Launched in 2010, more than $170 million of Thrivent Choice Dollars has been invested in charities around the world as directed by eligible members. In 2011 alone, St. Jude’s Hospital was awarded over $200,000 through the program.

A Reminder about Funding Overdependence - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly: A report from Portland, Maine about the closing of a city-run clinic that provided healthcare for 2300 homeless people each year should remind us that wherever possible, we should guard against overdependence on one source of funding. The clinic’s fate was decided when it lost a federal grant that provided approximately a third of its annual budget of $1.8 million.